Kabul - Taliban militants attacked a police patrol in southern Afghanistan and the ensuing firefight left four insurgents and one police officer dead, police said on Wednesday.

The attack happened on Tuesday in Marja district of the volatile southern province of Helmand when the police officers were patrolling the area, Mohammad Hussain Andewal, the provincial police chief, said.

"The fighting that happened yesterday evening left four Taliban militants dead and one police officer was also killed and another two were wounded," Andewal said.

He said that the bodies of the militants along with their weapons were left on the battlefield.

The attack in Helmand came in the same day as 17 Afghan workers and seven militants were killed when Taliban insurgents attacked a road construction company convoy in the neighboring province of Zabul.

The Taliban-led insurgency has been on the rise after a lull during the winter, following the bloodiest year in 2007 that left more than 8,000 people dead in violent clashes.